Mapping at Last” is an exhibition that brings together twelve artists of all different generations who are integrating the notion of mapping, and/or topographical statements, into their creative process. The maps subsequently produced become part of a world to which they belong — fantasised landscapes, unfinished journeys or pictorial transcriptions of a survey no longer conform to the dictates of space and time. It is no longer a localised space that the artists choose to represent, but the compilation of a collective memory, the felt vibrations of a journey…

The cartographique artist: some general notes on the exhibition "Mapping at Last by Paul Ardenne

The interest of many artists in geographical maps, not insignificant at the turning point of the 21st century, draws the portrait of a “cartographer” artist. First of all this is not a traveller, or if he/she is, they never omit to consulting the map before departure or on return, working on and reconfiguring it. So what is the perspective of the “cartographer” artist? It is in no way that of the conventional cartographer — a qualified and disciplined geographer, but rather a topographical surveyor where there are no real territories but a genre, invariably, very specific: the default genre. My body as a map Whatever its aims, aesthetics or born desires to better outline a concrete geographical perimeter, “cartographic” art is comprised of a fertile articulation between artist and territory. Until this evidence, the cartography that the artist draws or redraws is always that of his/her self, his/her body — a self-portrait. From “cartographic” to “geographical” art, there is however a significant step not always crossed by the artist. Whether they play with the maps or conceive them in a contorted way, many of the visuals artists do not, however, pay any particular attention to the real landscape, which they don’t make into an “object of art”. Plenty of others, on the other hand, are in the habit of working outside the studio and outside artistic spaces, at the heart of the world. The artists, in their own way geographers, have in this case passed from the representation of territory, to its penetration. A whole other history of art, as one imagines.”